Many dental treatments involve repositioning misaligned teeth and changing bite configurations for improved cosmetic appearance and dental function. Orthodontic repositioning can be accomplished, for example, by applying controlled forces to one or more teeth over a period of time.
An example of orthodontic repositioning that can occur through a dental process uses one or more positioning dental appliances, such as aligners, for realigning teeth. Placement of an appliance over the teeth can provide controlled forces in specific locations to gradually move the teeth into a new configuration. Repetition of this process with successive appliances in progressive configurations can move the teeth through a series of intermediate arrangements to a final desired arrangement.
Typically, in order to design each aligner, the progression of the teeth from an initial position to a final position is determined, via a computing device. This progression is then segmented into a plurality of segments and an aligner is formed that is based upon each of the positions of the teeth at those segments.
Currently, a treatment plan is designed by beginning with a current teeth configuration, proposing an end configuration, generating, via a computing device, a path for the teeth from the current configuration to the end configuration, and segmenting that path into multiple segments and forming the appliances based on the data from each of these segments.
Each appliance may then be sequentially placed on a patient's teeth with the theory that the dental appliance will act on the teeth to move each tooth in a particular direction toward its position of the next progressive segment. However, in some instances, the appliance does not move the teeth to the position of the next progressive segment for a number of reasons, as discussed below. Accordingly, in these instances, the treatment plan then has to be revised and new aligners created to remedy the different than anticipated positioning of one or more of the teeth.